Posted 2 years ago on April 24, 2012, 6:57 p.m. EST by elf3
(3206)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

And when I say subsidies don't include elderly or severely sick or disabled.

I have always supported a safety net for those in need. But over the past few years I have come to a conclusion that the welfare system is more to the advantage of corporations than it is to the poor here is why I believe this:

Someone on welfare can make more money than someone who is poor yet works full time.

The welfare system fraught with fraud but the politicians refuse to crack down or investigate taking away from those who are in deep need.

All welfare money actually in the end gets diverted back into the pockets of corporations (grocery stores, clothing, gas/ big oil, landlords, universities etc.) which allows the economy to limp along / retail to survive while working people have been laid off in droves by them. They just tax the few left whose salaries have also been downsized / stagnant so in stead of a demand for higher wages and jobs, there is more demand for welfare; which only hurts the working poor even more, and takes away from the little they had to give to others so they can support consumerism on their dime.

In stores where welfare is a prominent form of payment - prices are higher than in other stores.

There is no law stating that the money must be used on the child.

Store clerks must cash people out on EBT who can buy five times the amount that the store clerk can afford.

Section 8 rentals drive up apartment prices for the working poor because it is a guaranteed check for the landlord. The state also doesn't check to make sure how many people live there or if those living with the recipient have a criminal background. The state also pays the landlord for fixes and repairs.

Those in the service sector have to pay for someone else to go to school with their taxes while he or she has no upward mobility and drives up the cost of education since the state only cries for more taxes to cover it and doesn't penalize the colleges. Also has to pay for someone else to have a child while he/ she can not afford to. But then gets taxed even more to pay for the recipients'/ children's education and food.

While they get subsidized utilities - instead of an outcry for lower prices it raises prices for the rest of us since the state doesn't really care - only demands more of the taxes from the working poor to pay for it.

There is a whole lot wrong with these scenarios. Anyone else think it's a faulty system?

It's the poor taking from the other half of the poor (since the rich have every write off under the sun and we no longer have a middle class - 50 percent of Americans earn less than $26,000 per year). Add up food stamps, section 8, car and cell and cable and utility, as well as university charges and daycare, clothing stipends - seems like the other half of the poor is living pretty well (and corporations can still get a return courtesy of the working stiffs). I bet corporations support welfare, and lots of it - let's them keep on laying off more workers yet still have consumers - otherwise they may have been screwed and shot themselves in the foot - instead they let the taxpayers bail them out - again...only this time they can hide behind the poor - brilliant and the politicians get to seem pious.)

Welfare enables corporations to split all their shifts down to part time since those on welfare must work a few hours to get their money. It also enables them to get around benefits which the working poor can't afford but welfare recipients don't need because the state pays for it.

Maybe it's just easier to accept subsidies than to be part of the endless struggle of the working poor - but the corporations don't mind ... it's all going into their bank accounts in the end after all.

If the other half of the poor had no safety net- instead of crying for more of your taxes - they'd also be crying for change.

31 Comments

Here is an idea. Why doesn't the government set up a community farming in the projects and low income areas and then pay the people in the community to work the farms eventually setting them up to be self sufficient and turning it over to the community. Then money that the residents pay with food stamps goes to the people working the farm and keeping up with other costs asscociated with the farm. Like a co op that that community owns. Any profit that the farms produce can be used by the community for things like education and to the workers that would work and partly own farms.

I think you have to look at this from two angles - one there is nothing to keep low-wage workers motivated - quite frankly from this end welfare is starting to look dreamy (only I feel it's wrong to take from those who truly need it so I'm not about to pop out a child and let everyone else pay for me to be a stay at home mom, but not everyone has this kind of pride/ morals they feel hey your a sucker if you don't use what is offered.) And two Corporations benefit from this system greatly - if what you say is true - about 70% then all of that money is going back to Wall Street. What would happen to them if we cut it off? They would collapse. Politicians and Wall Street are aware of this - they are the ones taking advantage of us. In so many years has anyone tried to reform this system ? It seems to me that it's only been expanding under both parties. The only problem is now the working poor are running thin as they become the laid off - Wall Street is being pressured to reach into their own pockets (which makes no financial sense to them) so the have been sending out a propaganda war machine to convince people that the one percent musn't be taxed at any cost - "occupy wants people's taxes" - if all that money gets spent somewhere - who is really getting the taxes and who is actually paying for it?

The one percent musn't be taxed at any cost? They're already paying 40% of all the income taxes.

I think you're talking about the bottom 50% of earners who are paying about 3% of all the income taxes. They're the ones trying to convince people they shouldn't have to pay anything and anyone but them should pay taxes.

We weren't even THIS progressive taxwise under Clinton FFS! Let's be realistic here.

Fifty percent of all Americans earn less than $26000 per year. How much do the CEO's in their companies make? When you want to find out why Uncle Sam is coming for you - it's because the working poor have been bleed out - they have nothing left to give of their meager pay. All of their pay then goes into monopolies for things like oil, gas, telecom, cell, insurance, car payment, food companies grocery chains, etc. who have collectively set prices and ousted all competitors and with them competitive rates further bleeding them dry. On top of this they have sent most of their jobs overseas which further lowers their wages. Then when all these people are laid off and can't survive anymore the government has given corporations a cushion and safety net by allowing people to continue to shop on the welfare system. Keeps corporations profiting higher than ever by raising taxes on the citizens to pay for it so if you want to know why your tax rate is so or the welfare system so expansive look to corporate America. They have systematically driven out consumers but found a way to keep people buying only it's with the meager wages the corporations pay out - to which the government taxes us to give back to them - so in essence they aren't actually paying anyone - all they are doing is collecting from us. Collecting labor and profits. Do you understand this concept? It's a bail-out done in the guise of helping the poor executed by both parties. If either wanted to help working America they would banish out-sourcing and crack down on monopolies as well as subsidies. We need jobs, fair wages, and to stop being robbed into giving taxes back into the pockets of corporations.

It should be illegal not to pay a worker enough to feed their family. It should be illegal to cripple them and throw them off on disability. Subsidies for the poor do subsidize outrageous medical costs, higher grocery bills, indirectly cable and internet and everything else. If you take it away, the corporations will hurt, but people will probably die. That won't bother the .001%. They'll hire themselves official ball washers for $1.00 per hour under the table and laugh. They'll be able to buy sex with children and abuse people in obscene ways, its better than starving right? The clerk at Walmart is on food-stamps and has a debit card most of the time. Once I was buying some Ramen and hotdogs to feed my kids one week, and the clerk in the grocery store looked at my food and asked if I had a food-stamp card. I looked at the Ramen, hotdogs, and bologna and looked at her and said, "You think if I had food stamps I'd be feeding my kids this?" The recording industry and movie people have been screaming because they are not in anyone's budget anymore. Control the internet, it won't make people a dime richer! The protests will draw bigger crowds if they cut food-stamps and medicaid. Walmart will go fire some more people. The .001% are well aware of their plans to leave America a burnt out stinking pile of ash and rubble, they are doing it to other countries as well. Put money in the pocket of a poor person and they will be broke again by sundown, guaranteed they will throw every dime back into the economy. Its true, it aids the rich, it subsidizes them and keeps the economy limping along. It keeps people out of the streets and off TV weighing 84 pounds and saying "Send money now" to the whole wide world.

I don't want people to starve either - but this is like a boiling frog - because as more and more of us get laid off and our wages cut - then where will the help come from? the rich? - ha ha ha ha hee - don't make me laugh, like you said they don't care if they step over someone starving because they've learned the common propaganda that he didn't take any initiative not to starve. I agree with the stinking pile too - yes where are they going to go to get away from the stench? If America collapses then so goes the world even New Zealand... it's like the titanic - they think they'll get a lifeboat - but we will pull them over - there are more of us. This game will end - just that knowledge, keep that...they only have money for now until the dollar is worthless - they'll be in the same boat as us. Perspective will be forced to change and that American compassion that we were always know for may actually be seen again. If people really start thinking about who ultimately gets taxes (corporations) you can't really look at the welfare system in the same way - it is exposed for what it is. And the poor have been caught as the scapegoat. A diversion. And if you follow their logic, isn't the initiative not to starve to go on welfare and survive? And on that note the initiative to rob people blind, bribe the government, and use slave labor, pollute with toxic chemicals, create murderous monopolies, go to war for profit, somehow more insidious than just trying to keep eating? One seems, well... sane and forgivable - the other doesn't quite - what's next in the name of jobs? - what will they excuse (child porn?, sex slavery? Where does corporate America draw that line - that so called initiative? - do they have a line? I don't think they do so we need to create one. Mentally insane people who don't understand what murder means or the concept of morality need to be guarded. They have induced their own regulation.

Telecom & cell? No, last I checked democrats were giving away free cell phones for votes, subsidized by tax payers. Food? No, we have a four fold increase in food stamps over the past couple of years subsidized by tax payers. Car payment? Well it has to be pretty damn low, now that the Chevy Volt is being subsidized to the tune of $8,000 per car by the tax payers. Plus we had subsidies thru cash for clunkers thanks to the tax payers.

Do you understand the concept that the more the gubment subsidizes, the WORSE things get?

Banish outsourcing? How the hell do you do that? The company folds and opens up overseas because YOU my friend make doing business here so unfriendly. How do you expect to keep them here? It's a global economy. WAKE the hell up!

Can we go back to the Clinton days when you leftists weren't so nutty and economically illiterate???

You're misunderstanding my post I'm not for these subsidies - I feel if we stopped then corporations would have to hire and people would demand an end to outsourcing. But in there you said it - look closely and the subsidy is being filtered through the poor to actually go back into the hands of corporations who refuse to pay a liveable wage or hire / create jobs - don't you see what's driving welfare - it's not the poor, it's corporations well and our government who seeks to help them from both parties. The working poor are getting stuffed and the poor aren't able to get out of the cycle of dependence. Why would we allow corporations to make products overseas and then still think they can sell them here. If you want to do business in the world's largest consumer capital then you have to stay to play - quite simply. What's wrong with that? Atmosphere of giving to corporations through any and all means and stacking the deck in their favor ? You mean not competing with slave labor - America has certain standards that always kept us from being like the third world - now you say it's ok to forget all that in the name of cheap labor and polluting all over people and step over them while they are laying there dying? I don't get you or your stance - it's weird - are you an American or not?

Frankly my friend, many big corporations, particularly the ones OWS loves to hate, pay very good money and provide excellent benefits. You should be so lucky as to land a job at a big bank or big pharma company or big oil company. You'd get an excellent salary, inexpensive health care for you and your family, a 401(k) and maybe a pension plan on top of it, and good working conditions. I think you'd be very pleasantly surprised.

If you are paid a market wage and agree to it, then take the job. If not, move on. If there are no offers for the job, the company will raise the wage to meet the worker's demand. If not, the job will go unfilled and the company will suffer.

If you demand artificial wages for a job, then you are causing inflation because the worker's productivity does not match his or her wage. The more you subsidize or artificially demand wages that are not in line with the work, the more unintended consequences you cause, the biggest being market dislocations and owners who stop hiring because a business environment is created which doesn't make sense.

Government should not pick winners and losers by artificially demanding certain wages for certain work. That's why offshoring is going on. You are literally driving business offshore by trying to centrally plan the economy. Do you get my stance now?

I think you've lost sense of reality - this country belongs to the people - we just let you do business here and it's on our terms...not the other way around - If you don't want to play fair or pay a liveable wage or manufacture here - get going sell your apple to the Albanians or Chinese - if we got rid of all the monopolies here companies would thrive and actually would have to compete for business again and for employees by paying more and lowering price. And then businesses would have customers they wouldn't have to survive on welfare. The economy is circular pay it forward pays you. But that's why it will crash because people like you don't understand that. Noone is demanding set wage - they are demanding a fair market. Instead we have corporations picking winners and losers artificially demanding certain wages for certain work by creating scarecity and a false sense of demand and driving out all other companies by setting the stage to their advantage by paying off politicians. What is that if not exactly like communism? Corporatism and Communism are the same things we need Socialism and Capitalism - evenly to prevent a constructed system. Let them go offshore but let them stay - we don't need their imports and actually we'd be better off without them altogether.

Um, what computer are you typing on and where was it made? Here? I don't think so. Apple is selling to China and the Albanians and it's being made by Foxconn in China. So what you want has already happened.

If you don't need the imports, fine. Stop buying them!

We don't need socialism... just look at Greece (rioting), Spain (50% unemployment) and Italy. No thanks.

The worst part about you is your pride. You believe yourself so much better than the rest of the world, that you no longer want to work. You want it handed to you. You make demands when you have nothing to bargain with. You can't compete with workers in Argentina, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, etc. You demand and yet what do YOU bring to the table? Sorry, browsing the internet and whining all day isn't a product.

The U.S. is broke and you want, want, want. From where? You want green energy? Are YOU making the windmills? Why not?

Your problem is how closed off and subjugated you are that you can't open up to a discussion for fixing what is wrong - you just want to live within that system and just because you happen to be doing ok don't mind the fact that all around you people are not; when they try to point that out you attack them for actually wanting better? Wasn't that what America was founded on - wanting better, wanting a chance - not being told what to do for the rest of your life,like in a Communist state where you can do that which is assigned to you or STARVE. - Your point being you can't buy a computer if it's not made by apple or microsoft was my point - How can you buy anything else? - when apple has driven out everything else or disables the personal pc in favor of a cloud by using slave labor and control instead of ingenuity. I demand because this country belongs to me, I do not belong to it, or to a corporation. What I bring to the table is common sense - you bring a fantasy in which everyone else around you is insufferable and deserves to live a lesser existence than yourself. How much pride does that take? I Want want want FREEDOM and choice- Why is it that what you don't see is that workers bring their time to the table which is much more valuable than any product that you could make. I was not born into this planet to serve someone. Especially someone like you. We demand choice - We demand a free market We demand freedom. I'm sorry that doesn't serve your agenda, but it serves the constitution, which types like you so often try to stand behind though you completely misinterpret it's meaning. The idea is to be free not to allow you the freedom to trample or tread on me so you can abuse the system. If our tax dollars (mine as well since I work full time) are not used with enough discretion to allow for the things which should matter most to be done (such as windmills instead of giving it to Bank of America) then we are all surely blind. But no I can not pull windmills out of my ass - nor can I get a loan from a bank to pull windmills out of someone else's - then it is pretty impossible that I should be able to do so. All of our resources have been stolen and horded and one percent is benefiting - I would gather that includes you. Aside from which I am advocating an even balance between socialism and capitalism. I don't want Communism nor do I want Corporatism: which are the same things. What do you think if you ignore what people say, put words into their mouths and repeat enough times what you want to argue about, you're changing reality? That is illusion and has been the way of Wall Street for far too long. Marketing doesn't work in the real world. People know what truth is they can feel when they're being played with and lied to. Repeating a lie over and over won't make it truth. I'm sorry you feel that you own this country or people. Noone ever deserves to work for you - I only hope that you have no employees. You don't deserve the privilege of being allowed to do business in this nation. Workers are Americas greatest commodity!!!! We need to invest in them.

When it comes to workers - damn straight they are being persecuted for working hard and pressing on no matter what is thrown at them they just keep going back for more... you're just sour because Occupy is trying to convince the rest of the workers that it doesn't have to be this way. People get used to conditions and think it's normal - we're pointing out that it's not. If enough workers realize that they can change it - the one percent profit margin and ability to do whatever it wants to workers goes down. Pity

ok I agree - but allowing private companies to roll on in though and feed off of the government is bad ? Can we agree on that? Also that state unions are bad since they take, take, take, from the citizenry without any balances? Forty dollars an hour for a cop to stand at a pot-hole and watch traffic go by?

Posted 4 hours ago on Nov. 10, 2011, 3:49 p.m. EST by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom This content is user submitted and not an official statement

The problem in society is income inequality. So the ONLY solution that will fix it is income equality.

We produce $15 trillion in income each year which is enough to make every worker wealthy. If that income was allocated equally, for example, it is enough to pay every full time worker $135,000 per year.

That's right, the average income in the U.S. is $135k. And that is more than what 97% of all workers make. That means 97% of all workers make a below-average income. That is simply not fair and the root cause of all our problems.

If you do that - the monopolies raise prices.. won't work - we need a fair market not a set market which corporations have now done - which is what you are protesting (it often gets confused and overlooked amidst their greed and evilness - sometimes I forget this too)

There must be even balance between capitalism and socialism to prevent communism and corporatism which are in their core essence the same things. If you are against communism, which so am I, then you must also be against corporatism. We do not have capitalism at this point in time we have corporatism. - A corporate state since government and corps are now working together to subvert the people.